Gravel or pea shingle under floorboards

[Tennentslager]

Glasgow has thousands of tenements build around 1890 to 1910 and many years before and after. My son's rental is c1890 and traditional with 600mm thick walls, from out side in, 200mm sandstone, 100 cavity, 100 brick, 100 cavity, 100 brick.

 

In the 1980s there was a massive refurbishment programme, after years of demolition, the powers that be decided to keep these handsome buildings and upgrade them street by street.

 

Families were decanted (for around 2 years) Andy grants given and the work took place over a decade. Many different methods were used but in the main this involved removing the chimney stacks, re-roofing, sand blasting, new windows and complete remodeling internally. Coal fired were the original heating method but gas engineers quickly became competent at drilling the 600mm walls for many new gas boilers. 

 

Old stair head lavvies (it was common to have one WC per floor, often shared by three flats and accessed from the common close) were replaced with new internal toilets.

 

Have a look at this picture and in the next post I'll tell you what's going on...

 

[Tennentslager]

The tenements have very generous proportions with 3m high ceilings and tall casement windows...I was always told these were to let the light sink deep into the rooms as they were built before electric light was common and at a northerly latitude the winter sun can be low...anyway, I digress, but clue one, there is no shortage of FFL to play with.

[saveasteading]

You tease!

 

I was there in the late 70's, surveying tenements to decide if they could live or must come down. It was based almost  entirely on hanging a plumb down the stairwell and noting the slope of the walls.

Every 'stair' had a residents group who got to decide trivial stuff that kept them involved. There was always one woman who was the undisputed leader, and I think she was always called Big Aggie.

 

How long to wait for the next pic?

 

 

[saveasteading]

3 minutes ago, Tennentslager said:

FFL to play with.

Food for life or finished floor level?

[Tennentslager]

So, we have a smell of gas and the BG fella has turned it off as there a 20 Mb drop. (Is Mb= millibar?)

 

This is looking for the run of the gas pipe from the meter to the boiler.

 

Kevin the heating engineer has done a few of these before and explains.

Seems a method developed whereby the old floorboards were left in place and all the new plumbing and heating was laid first fix ON TOP of the floorboards.

[Tennentslager]

The joiners came in next and laid suitable filling pieces before covering the whole lot in tons of gravel (WTF, we think for sound deadening) and then new floorboards.

 

Guess what...we found the 22mm pipe coming from the meter and into the hall.

 

Now we know the supply to the boiler is in 15mm but can't find the junction and step down to 15 amongst this shingle.

 

[TonyT]

It’s not gravel it’s called deafening 

[Tennentslager]

Then I found it, 22 to two 15mm pipes, one to the kitchen for the cooker, one to the boiler...hard to find because the d*ckhead joiner had put a joist (filler) on TOP of the gas pipe with a srtip of foam.

 

Hard to find but after fingertip investigation we did.

The whole lot is to be repiped in 22mm.

End of story so far

[Tennentslager]

I've agreed to do the labour so have to cut about 5m of floorboards perpendicular to the grain and dig out the deadaning ( thanks @TonyT) for Kevin to do the repiping.

 

First Q

 

Should I leave a board intact every 6 or so for structural integrity...would still leave room to get a 3m legnth of pipe in there or just rip the lot up with a long skill saw cut?

 

[Tennentslager]

26 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Food for life or finished floor level?

Finished floor level ?

 

Now I'm Sherlock I've noticed the step up at the front door, at 150mm it's barely noticeable though...

[saveasteading]

Just now, Tennentslager said:

step up at the front door, at 150mm

So the doors were very high?

 

Do you mean that you will cut out boards just enough to do the job? This is what most people do, and shouldn't be  a problem structurally but just looks messy. theoretically the floor might move more at the cut, but the gravel is preventing that.

 

what floor are you?

[ProDave]

I take it this is not ground floor?

 

I have found many old traditional cottages here with what looks like clinker in the inter floor void.  Was that there for insulation or sound deadening?

[Tennentslager]

Its second floor as in Ground,1st, 2nd.

Most tenements are G,1,2,3 but this is a smaller one.

I'm thinking the integrity is all in the original floor as this is effectively a floating or sandwich floor.

The main run of the 5m is 1.5 in the hall so I'll fix ply there afterwards before a new carpet as the old one is gunned now.

In the bedroom it follows a run along the wall which has two wardrobes placed there so never walked on.

 

[Tennentslager]

33 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

36 minutes ago, Tennentslager said:

step up at the front door, at 150mm

So the doors were very high?

Good spot...the living room door is a tiny bit low as it's original. I had a job getting a big sofa under it. It's a big room, 7m long.

The big bedroom to the front is also original but had a skylight above the door so would have been refashioned.

All the rest of the doors ( toilet, kitchen, bed 2) are remodeled so would have been made to suit.